Tonight, I will be on "The Majority Report" with Sam Seder talking about the big terrorism conference, the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the National Guard, John Bolton and the U.N. Millennium Summit, and other topics.

I am also pleased to report that General Wesley Clark who is one of the terrorism conference's keynote speakers will be on the program also -- talking about his proposal regarding Iraq as well as our mega-conference on America's "next phase" response to terrorism.

Wesley Clark recently published this op-ed in the Washington Post which makes the important point that military and police means alone will never win the struggle against terrorists nor help the U.S. connect to the peoples around the world that terrorism is trying to appeal to.

An excerpt:

On the military side, the vast effort underway to train an army must be matched by efforts to train police and local justices. Canada, France and Germany should be engaged to assist. Neighboring states should also provide observers and technical assistance. In military terms, striking at insurgents and terrorists is necessary but insufficient.

Military and security operations must return primarily to the tried-and-true methods of counterinsurgency: winning the hearts and minds of the populace through civic action, small-scale economic development and positive daily interactions. Ten thousand Arab Americans with full language proficiency should be recruited to assist as interpreters.

A better effort must be made to control jihadist infiltration into the country by a combination of outposts, patrols and reaction forces reinforced by high technology. Over time U.S. forces should be pulled back into reserve roles and phased out.

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops.

If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

I should also mention that General Clark is blogging until September 2nd at "Table for One" at TPM Cafe, my other blog home where I have been AWOL during the planning for this conference.

Start times for the radio show tonight: Steve Clemons on at 8 p.m. Wesley Clark will be on at 8:30 p.m., eastern time.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Washington Post's Walter Pincus joined us yesterday for a lunch that the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation hosted with Richard Clarke and wrote this article which appears today.

Clarke made some excellent points -- but among those not covered in the Pincus article was that "four years is a long time."

Clarke said:

As we approach the 4th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we need to take stock of what we have done that has worked, and not, in our struggle against terrorism. . .Four years is a long time.

In four years, America fought and beat Nazi Germany while simultaneously fighting Imperial Japan -- and at the same time built the nuclear bomb and had the Manhattan Project.

A lot can be done in four years. On the plus side in the last four years, we have liberated Afghanistan. But then the record gets mixed.

Here is an excerpt from the Pincus article which mentions our forthcoming conference:

Richard A. Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said yesterday that there were twice as many attacks outside Iraq in the three years after the 2001 attacks as in the three preceding years.

Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group "are no longer the traditional leaders as they were in the 1990s," Clarke said, adding that the terrorist leader had been building ideological groups from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001, and that they had grown in the past few years into 14 to 16 separate networks.

Clarke said that bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, exercise "symbolic control and provide broad-brush themes" and that most of the networks operate independently, but "there are some signs of cooperation among some."

Clarke, now a corporate security and counterterrorism consultant, delivered his assessment of al Qaeda and the jihadist threat at a news conference at the New America Foundation designed to focus attention on a bipartisan, two-day policy forum set for next week in Washington, titled "Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose."

Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003 and has since alleged the Bush White House reacted slowly to warnings of terrorist attacks in early 2001.

Yesterday, Clarke said that Iraq is drawing a relatively small number of foreign fighters who train there and return home, but "it is unclear to what extent they are drawn by the U.S. presence or how much the U.S. is a magnet." Overall, he said that "there are more people participating [in jihadist networks] outside Iraq because of the U.S. presence" in that country.

-- Steve Clemons

Sorry for being AWOL the last few days. I have been deep in conference-planning messiness and am only now able to surface.

In between calls, I have been following the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. The National Guard has been called out in New Orleans -- and I would imagine in Mississippi and Alabama.

But do we have much of a National Guard left? It is these kinds of horrific disasters that the National Guard has been trained to respond to. But like our military, which is teetering on the edge of manpower collapse -- so too is the National Guard system breaking down.

In the end, America may manage its domestic crises and flounder forward in Iraq. But can there be any doubt that our power adversaries in the world -- be they potential peer competitors like China or other regional aspiring, wannabe-hegemons like Iran -- don't see America stretched to its limits right now.

This problem needs to be fixed -- and progressives should be calling for a national security vision that squeezes out the Cold War inertia still built into our military structure and get our national security framework back in sustainable condition.

-- Steve Clemons

Just posted this at TPM. For the Bolton-addicted. . .

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

This conference agenda keeps evolving, but TWN readers get the first web-look at the agenda for the conference I am directing, Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy.

I think that there are probably speakers in this that will both please and tick off just about everyone.

To register for the meeting, go to this website and fill in the on-line forms.

As far as broadcasting the meeting, people around the U.S. and the world can watch over the conference website by high quality, high resolution, real-time web-casting. C-Span hopefully will cover the conference, but we won't learn more until next week. CNN has indicated that it plans to cover much of the conference and to interview a good number of our speakers in CNN's new "Situation Room" show.

This agenda will keep twisting and turning a bit, but here is the absolutely most current draft, updated just two minutes ago at 1:36 a.m. EST.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Tom Clancy is confirmed to speak in the conference.

This is turning out to be a very fascinating assembly.

-- Steve Clemons

Maybe Bolton is moving fast to consolidate his forces against other contenders in the State Department.

Read here.

-- Steve Clemons

I am guest-blogging this week at Talking Points Memo -- and just posted this piece on John Bolton.

My comments refer to an important document was leaked to me this morning -- and also to Arianna Huffington it seems.

The document linked at TPM provides Bolton's suggested revisions to the Millennium Summit document in September.

I think Bolton is already slipping out of his leash.

-- Steve Clemons

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has confirmed her role as a major speaker at the upcoming September 6-7 Conference on America's "Next Phase" Response to Terrorism.

I can't report just yet the format of her session because it is going to be a bit different than the typical stand-up oratory -- and will be, I think, a fascinating format.

Secretary Albright has important things to say about America's response to terrorism, and she is interested in reading and listening to what our conference produces as well.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

James Steinberg, who currently serves as Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Programs at Brookings, is heading to Austin to serve as the next Dean of the LBJ School at UT Austin.

Steinberg also served as Bill Clinton's Deputy National Security Advisor and co-wrote a piece with Michael O'Hanlon well more than a year ago in the Washington Post arguing that the "American brand" had become so sullied in our Iraq operation that we lacked the moral standing to achieve our objectives there. He argued that staying in Iraq in those circumstances made no sense and that an alternate plan was needed. His brave article anticipated the debate breaking out now about U.S. operations in Iraq.

Francis Fukuyama, who now heads the "international development" programs at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins Univeristy, ranks on most serious lists as one of the top public intellectuals in the world. Most recently he has written an important book about the importance of state-building capacity and structuring the U.S. government to better anticipate and manage post-conflict situations as we have today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fukuyama is also the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the newly-launching American Interest journal

Representative Jane Harman is Ranking Member of the Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence in the U.S. House of Representatives and has been making major news assailing the management of America's most secret secrets -- and questioning how American interests can better be served by the intelligence establishment.

She is deeply informed on matters relating to America's national security posture towards the challenge of terrorism.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape is one of the most sought after public policy intellectuals in the country today -- briefing intelligence and national security officials on what actually drives suicide terrorism.

Pape is the author of Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

For a thoughtful, provocative interview with Scott McConnell of the American Conservative, read this.

Robert Pape will be speaking in the "Next Phase Response" Terrorism Conference on the morning of September 6th.

-- Steve Clemons

I have little doubt that long term Iran wants a nuclear weapons program. By knocking Iraq out of the equation, America has removed one of the chief 'balancers' of power in the region, and Iran's security and regional pretensions are going to fill that void. Balancing Israel is a long-term strategic objective of Iran.

But certain players in the American policy establishment -- in this case John Bolton (no surprise) -- just play loose and reckless with facts and evidence and undermine American credibility so that when we must marshall a coalition against a state's misbehavior, it is increasingly hard to do.

I am going to post a rather large segment of Linzer's piece in the Post today. It is important and reads just like a replay of our foray into Iraq:

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

The conclusions will be shared with IAEA board members in a report due out the first week in September, according to U.S. and European officials who agreed to discuss details of the investigation on the condition of anonymity. The report "will say the contamination issue is resolved," a Western diplomat said.

U.S. officials have privately acknowledged for months that they were losing confidence that the uranium traces would turn out to be evidence of a nuclear weapons program. A recent U.S. intelligence estimate found that Iran is further away from making bomb-grade uranium than previously thought, according to U.S. officials.

The IAEA findings come as European efforts to negotiate with Iran on the future of its nuclear program have faltered, and could complicate a renewed push by the Bush administration to increase international pressure on Tehran.

U.S. officials, eager to move the Iran issue to the U.N. Security Council -- which has the authority to impose sanctions -- have begun a new round of briefings for allies designed to convince them that Iran's real intention is to use its energy program as a cover for bomb building. The briefings will focus on the White House's belief that a country with as much oil as Iran would not need an energy program on the scale it is planning, according to two officials.

France, Britain and Germany have been trying for two years to convince Iran that it could avoid Security Council action if it gives up sensitive aspects of its nuclear energy program that could be diverted for weapons work. Iran has said it has no intention of making nuclear weapons and will not give up its right to nuclear energy. Iran has offered to put the entire program under IAEA monitoring as a way of alleviating international concerns. But European and U.S. officials have rejected that offer because it would still allow Iran access to bomb-making capabilities.

Iran built its nuclear program in secret over 18 years with the help of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a top Pakistani official and nuclear scientist who sold spare parts from his country's own weapons program to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan's black-market dealings were uncovered in 2003. He confessed on national television, was swiftly pardoned by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and is now under house arrest.

Pakistan has denied IAEA inspectors access to Khan and to the country's nuclear facilities, but earlier this year it agreed to share data and some equipment with the inspectors to expedite the Iran investigation. Among the equipment were discarded centrifuge parts that match those Khan sold to Iran.

John R. Bolton, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, served as the administration's point man on nuclear issuesduring President Bush's first term. He suggested during congressional testimony in June 2004 that the Iranians were lying about the contamination.

"Another unmistakable indicator of Iran's intentions is the pattern of repeatedly lying to and providing false and incomplete reports to the IAEA," Bolton said. "For example, Iran first denied it had enriched any uranium. Then it said it had not enriched uranium more than 1.2 percent. Later, when evidence of uranium enriched to 36 percent was found, it attributed this to contamination from imported centrifuge parts."

The IAEA, in its third year of an investigation in Iran, has not found proof of a weapons program. But a few serious questions, some connected to Iran's involvement with Khan, remain unanswered. While the investigation has been underway, Iran and the three European countries have been trying to reach a diplomatic accommodation. Their negotiations fell apart this month and Iran resumed some nuclear work it put on hold during the talks.

We need to compel John Bolton and others like him to spend a week in the home of a soldier killed in Iraq...and better yet, send him to Iraq and have him spend a week with one of the families who lost one or more innocent family members because of this conflict. He should get a sense of the "consequences" of the games he and others are playing with evidence.

When we are right, it's one thing; but when are wrong -- lots and lots of innocent people die. It's not what this country is about.

-- Steve Clemons

The line-up for the September 6-7 conference: Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy continues to strengthen.

Rita Hauser is a well-known international lawyer, leading Republican Party stalwart in New York, a board member of the RAND Corporation, and Chair of the International Peace Academy that works closely with the United Nations.

George Soros is one of the world's most successful fund managers and has written prolifically on international finance, global governance, and on shaping political environments conducive to sustainable democracy and "open societies." He is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute.

Lee Hamilton, is now President of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, is also the well-respected, long-serving former Chairman of the House International Relations Committee and served as Vice-Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the "9-11 Commission".

Warren Rudman, former Republican Senator from New Hampshire, also served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, co-chaired with Gary Hart the United States Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, the so-called "Hart-Rudman Commission" which presciently anticipated a major terrorist event on U.S. soil in advance of 9/11.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

This article makes its way beyond most of the thin commentary on the turmoil in Iraq.

There are those close to Sunni insurgents who are offering some common sense advice to the American forces there. Perhaps we should listen.

From the San Francisco Chronicle's Robert Collier:

Surprisingly, however, the Iraqis who might be expected to support such a pullout -- those close to the Sunni Arab militants themselves -- say the focus on a quick exit is misplaced.

"It's impossible for them or us to fix an exact schedule" for troop withdrawal, said Isam al-Rawi, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a group of 3,000 Sunni clerics. "That is not the important thing right now. There are other steps that are much more necessary to calm the situation."

Largely unnoticed amid the U.S. political debate, al-Rawi and other Sunni leaders close to the insurgency have reached tacit consensus over the broad outline of an interim program to reduce the violence, stabilize the country and thus enable the U.S.-led coalition troops to begin a gradual withdrawal. While differences remain on some points, there is wide agreement on these steps:

-- A troop pullout from most urban areas and an end to military checkpoints and raids. "The Americans and British must leave all residential areas," said al-Rawi. "This is very sensitive for our feelings. When they retreat to military bases outside the major cities, the Iraqis will no longer be meeting military tanks and trucks in the streets and highways, and they will no longer be afraid their home will be invaded at night."

-- Overhaul of the Iraqi Army and National Guard. Although the White House and Democrats alike say they want to turn over security duties to the Iraqi Army and National Guard as soon as possible, Sunni Arabs point out that these two institutions are almost completely composed of members of their ethnic enemies -- the Kurdish peshmerga and the Shiite militias. "These people want to humiliate the Sunni," al-Hashimi said. "The Army and National Guard must be professionalized. They cannot be dominated by members of the party militias."

Over the past two years, U.S. officials have alternately recruited and purged Sunni Arab officers and troops. The problem with the Sunni Arabs, the Americans say, is that they are heavily infiltrated by the insurgency, while the Kurds and Shiites are dependably loyal to the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.

-- Release of prisoners. The number of Iraqi prisoners in American military custody has grown rapidly in recent months, with as many as 15,000 Iraqis behind bars, according to U.S. estimates.

Military officials have admitted that many of the prisoners have simply been swept up in neighborhood roundups. Because there is no formal trial process, the process of vetting prisoners and releasing those found innocent is very slow. Military officials have reportedly expressed worry that the sprawling prison camps are serving as recruiting camps for al Qaeda and the most extremist insurgent groups.

"There are many thousands of prisoners and there is no transparency, there is no accusation list," said Wamidh Nadhmi, the leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend, a secularist group that boycotted the January elections.

"Several relatives of mine were imprisoned for months, and there was no evidence. And for people who are arrested by Iraqi police it is worse. They are tortured, all kinds of things are done to them. That makes Iraqis very, very angry."

In Beirut, Lebanon, on July 29, Nadhmi was one of 47 Iraqi leaders and intellectuals who co-signed a statement expressing support for "the valiant armed resistance to the occupation." But the statement indicated divisions in their ranks between former members of the ruling Baath Party and non-Baathists, stating the need for "resolving antagonisms between the patriotic forces through a bold process of criticism and self-criticism with respect to the mistakes of the past."

Nadhmi and other Iraqis interviewed for this article said they did not advocate release of Saddam Hussein or others accused of involvement in killings and torture. "No, it is not necessary to release them," al-Rawi said. "They are bad men. They have committed crimes. But you must release the others. "

-- Amnesty for pro-Baathist, radical Islamist and hard-line nationalist groups, while excluding al Qaeda. Former top officials of the Hussein government chafe under the law that has outlawed membership in -- or even verbal support for -- the Baath Party. "There must be a legal way for all those people opposed to the American presence to be organized legally," said Nadhmi. "Otherwise they will fight."Several top leaders of the Islamic Clerics Association have been arrested by U.S. troops, and several have been killed in mysterious circumstances by gunmen who the association says are Shiite death squads.

-- Negotiations with the "resistance." Sunni leaders have frequently met with U.S. officials in Baghdad to try to coax them to talk with the guerrillas. They draw a line between what they call the "resistance," by which they mean Iraqi fighters who attack only U.S. and Iraqi troops, and the Sunni extremists linked to al Qaeda who have spread terror with car bombs and suicide attacks against Shiite civilians.

More later on the September 6-7 terrorism conference.

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush is planning a rally to stir up support for the war in Iraq.

Senator Hagel, who is speaking at our terrorism conference on September 6th, has cut down near the roots of the White House's effort to keep pumping money and military men and women into Iraq.

Senator Russ Feingold seems to be the highest profile Democrat making the same pitch as Hagel.

Most Republicans and it seems to me that most leading Democrats are still on the side of trying to turn Iraq into some sort of victory. If not a victory, then at least not a complete disaster -- which Peter Beinart has said it would be if America just withdraws.

More on this later.

-- Steve Clemons

I really enjoyed talking with Sam Seder tonight on Air America's The Majority Report.

We spoke about George Bush and the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan, Ari Berman's excellent article -- The Strategic Class -- in The Nation, and then our upcoming mega-conference on America's "next phase response" to terrorism.

If you tune in now -- which you can over the web -- Arianna Huffington is on talking about Judy Miller.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has been making major news as he meets with constituents in meetings all around Nebraska this week.

TWN posted a bit earlier regarding the Senator's constructive and provocative comments on America's engagement in Iraq.

He also offered some common sense perspective on the Cindy Sheehan affair in Crawford.

As CNN reports:

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska and Vietnam war veteran who has been critical of Bush's handling of the war, said Thursday that Sheehan "deserves some consideration, and I think that should have been done right from the beginning."

"I think the wise course of action, the compassionate course of action, the better course of action would have been to immediately invite her in to the ranch," Hagel told CNN.

"It should have been done when this whole thing started. Listen to her."

I am pleased to report that Senator Hagel will be the featured speaker at dinner on Tuesday, September 6th at the forthcoming national policy forum, Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy, that I am helping to organize in Washington, D.C.

Although the title of the speeech is tentative, I think that his remarks will be titled: "America's Purpose and the Global Struggle Against Terrorism." I think that's broad enough to cover a lot of territory but also a useful platform to critique where America is in its understanding and response to terorrism and where the nation needs to go.

The conference is taking place on September 6th & 7th at the Capital Hilton in Washington.

Information on the conference is available here -- and there will be real-time, high-quality webcast of the entire conference on line.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

There are few in the country whom I think better articulate what is driving the tumult in the Middle East than Juan Cole.

Juan Cole is one of the mega-bloggers in the U.S., publishing the smart "Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion" blog. During the day, he enlightens very fortunate students who encounter him at the University of Michigan.

Here is a July 28th post by Cole titled: "The War on Terror Over" which thoughtfully deconstructs who many of the terrorists are, what is driving them, and how America could more effectively respond.

Juan Cole will be speaking at the "Next Phase" Terrorism Conference on a panel titled, The Grievance Challenge: Confronting the Political Dimensions of Terrorism at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 6th.

Hope you can join us in person or by webcast.

-- Steve Clemons

The schedule is nearly hammered out, but TWN is profiling in advance of release of the roster some of the major speakers at the upcoming terrorism conference I am helping to direct.

Former Congressman Bob Barr who represented Georgia's 7th District in Congress will be joining us and addressing in part the challenge of protecting society from terrorists who want to do harm on one hand and not undermining the liberties of citizens on the other.

Bob Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union, and serves as a Board Member of the National Rifle Association. He also consults for the American Civil Liberties Union and CNN.

Barr will be speaking on the afternoon panel, "Norms Under Stress" at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 6th.

The conference website is here.

-- Steve Clemons